The field of the disclosure relates generally to data stores, and more specifically, to a method and system for enabling a user to define a custom data type for a data store, and to add an additional field, defined as the custom data type, to an existing data store.
At least some known databases or data storage and retrieval applications include a fixed schema (i.e., a pre-defined structure of the stored data) or a schema that is relatively fixed. As such, data objects, fields, and field types may be difficult to scale to accommodate changing data requirements that were not built into the original schema. Moreover, a data application having the original schema may be used by a diverse set of users, for example, a sales force tasked with selling a variety of products to many different customers. Accordingly, an original database table may be common to all users, but as new products are developed and the sales force is increased to address the new products, additional unforeseen requirements (e.g., additional data) may be needed to support the sales force.
Attempts to remedy such shortcomings include use of user-defined types and custom fields. However, known systems have restricted capabilities. For example, one system uses a single table with five-hundred text columns, stores additional data as strings, and uses metadata tables to define what those columns mean and other tables to manage indexes and constraints. Some known systems cannot support a requirement of over five-hundred custom fields in a data object.